She pulled it again and again, but still the hook didn’t shoot out of the backpack and anchor into the wall like she needed it to.
Come on!
“That was it?” Tyler said.
Kari spared a glance to the guard and found him looking across the room at her.
“Give me a second, would you?”
“I really shouldn’t . . .”
“Please?”
I don’t want to have to shock you with my drones, Tyler, so if you could just give me a minute, that would be great.
“Oh, why not . . . she’s a real beast, and I’m going to retire soon anyway.”
A loud, screeching siren kicked into effect as the building’s aging security system reacted to the broken window. Kari pulled the trigger again, and still nothing happened. She tried to run some diagnostics on it with her mind chip, but nothing happened.
It’s a dud. Great. More ambitious guards will be arriving any second.
“Why don’t you just take the fire escape? Just right outside the window,” Tyler said.
“Oh.” Kari stepped over to the window and found that he was telling the truth. “Good idea. Thanks, Tyler.”
Tyler just brushed her gratitude off lazily with his hand and turned away as she climbed out the window. It only took her a few seconds to make it to the bottom of the ladder. The final drop to the ground was taller than she would have liked, but she jumped down anyway, landing on top of some manicured bushes. She didn’t have time to complain about the impact’s effect on her knees as she raced out to the back of the building.
That’s a heck of a response time . . .
Four police auto-autos had arrived behind the building already, and officers were rushing in.
I need a plan C now.
She didn’t have to think for long as a van rammed into the side of the fence directly across the lawn from her. Kari ordered her small drone army to accompany her, expecting a fight. Instead, the auto-van’s door slid open, and Motorcad leaned out.
“Better run, Professor Tahe,” Motorcad said. “I don’t have any bail money for you this time.”
Chapter Two
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Kari said.
She flipped through the camera feeds from her drones, checking for signs of pursuit.
Where are they?
Her drones fanned out around the van, searching in all directions for signs of enforcement officers.
“Good thing I ignored you,” Motorcad said. “Otherwise your drones would be tearing into those enforcement cars and you’d be running down Tenth Street looking for an open sewer drain to hide in.”
“Why aren’t they following us?”
“I know you don’t mean to insult me, but you’re not the only professional in this fine self-driving vehicle.”
Kari sighed. After one last check of her drones, she ordered a handful of them to land on top of the van and the rest of them to fly out of town. A hundred drones flying around their auto-van would draw unneeded attention.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” Motorcad said. “I’ve never been in the sewers, but I hear they aren’t pleasant. And then, they probably would have chased you down there and you’d be trying to dodge energy blasts by—”
“Thank you,” Kari said.
“I don’t believe you.”
Kari returned her attention to the real world and gave Motorcad a disapproving look. They had been constant companions for the last two years while they avoided the government and got their school off the ground. On the most part, they got along extremely well, but he did have a knack for getting under her skin at times.
“Why would you follow me here? Didn’t think I could do it on my own?”
“You really need to work on your gratitude, Kari. You’re starting to make me regret saving your butt.”
He’s right. It was a good thing he was here, even if he was supposed to be taking care of the school.
“Even though you’re supposed to be running the Academy right now, I’m glad you followed me against my wishes and were able to give me a ride.”
“You told me to not let the business run into the ground while you were away. I did that. Without you, there is no Academy, so I made sure everything went smoothly with Rosewood. Besides, I wanted to be able to claim partial credit for her downfall. You know? Gotta keep the rep up. Can’t have the world thinking I’m just a ridiculously good-looking and competent teacher.”
“So the kids are alone back at school? Great, I can’t wait to see what Ruth and Jared have been up to unsupervised.”
“Oh, I didn’t leave them alone. I left them in very capable hands. The best sub money could buy.”
“And how are we supposed to pay this all-star substitute?”
Most of the friction between them came up because of financial reasons. Getting the school up and running had been more expensive than they had hoped, but the difficult part came from trying to find legitimate revenue streams for their business. Kari and Motorcad both had plenty of private money still available in their respective bank accounts, but they were unable to use those funds for the school directly, thanks to strict government regulations.
It was a maddening situation. Kari was able to launder money, but the school had no way of representing anonymous donations in its tax statements. So they desperately tried to make ends meet by soliciting donations and charging the students who could pay tuition. Unfortunately, as they were both still wanted by the government for their involvement with the Unseen, fundraising could only be done online, and most of their students came from humble origins.
“Don’t worry, the sub agreed to work for free.”
Motorcad smiled smugly and Kari wanted to press him further on the subject, but she knew him well enough to know when he had shared all the details he cared to. Instead, she checked the digital copies of the files she had secured and started to read through them thoroughly.
“So did we get her?” Motorcad asked.
Kari didn’t respond immediately as she scanned down the document she was reading. A smile spread across her face.
“Oh yeah, we got her.”
Even though she had lived there for the good part of two years, the dry, hot air of Phoenix, Arizona, was still hard for her to deal with.
Especially after being out on the East Coast.
Kari didn’t waste any time leaving the auto-auto behind and heading straight into her school built out of an old factory on the outskirts of Phoenix. The building had undergone extreme renovations, but the majority of the work had been done on the inside and the roof. The old bricks and metal on the exterior largely remained in their original state.
The inside of the building, which served as a school, administration building, and residence for staff and students was quiet. It was one of the two polar opposite states in which the school existed. It was either silent as everyone worked with their mind chips, or obnoxiously loud as the teenagers seemingly competed to see who could make the most noise.
I call them teenagers, as if that makes them so much younger than me. I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t think I was a student here.
The large, open space on the second floor, commonly referred to as the “playground,” was empty.
That means class is still in session.
Kari headed through the playground for the classroom on the far side, but she didn’t make it before the school mascot came running across the floor at her.
“Lars! What have they done to you now?” Kari said, stooping down to pick up her dog that was outfitted in a custom printed alien costume that made him look like he had eight legs and a spiky back. She shook her head as Lars licked her hands. The students had a habit of printing Lars new uniforms every few days. No matter how many times she scolded them about it, the costumes never stopped.
“I’ll play with you soon, Lars, but I need to make sure the students haven’t gotten themselves all killed while I was away.” She pushed through the old swinging door and into the classroom.
A man with short blond hair and wearing a light-gray suit jacket stood with his back to the door in the middle of the room. Zack had been talking to him, but he went quiet as Kari entered the room.
“David?”
He turned around slowly and smiled at her. She bit her lip to keep herself from saying something silly in front of her students, but it didn’t have the desired effect.
“Professssoor!” Ruth shouted. The other twenty students scattered around the room on their form chairs all took up similar cheers.
Form chairs were one of Kari’s favorite developments of the last few years. The chairs were powered by a thousand tiny supports that would adjust to perfectly fit the person sitting in the chair. They were advanced enough to detect knots and pain points in an individual and changed their settings to alleviate pain. It was as good as getting a massage and wasn’t nearly as bumpy. The best part about the form chairs was that it kept the students much quieter than traditional chairs did.
David’s face immediately turned red, which caused Kari to laugh.
“Tempy Pratt!” Jared was by his side patting him on the back, and somehow David’s face went even redder.
“Detention!” Kari shouted. “Everyone here is getting detention.”
The class oohed sarcastically, but the shouting died down.
“And everyone is grounded. And no dessert. And thirty lashings each or something like that. Now everyone get out of here.”
“You heard the lady,” Ruth said. “Class has been dismissed as the room is needed for important executive functions.”
Ruth was the first student who had enrolled at the Academy of Gifted Young People, a few months before the first school year had been scheduled to start. She had been doing some very public hacking without properly securing her identity and Kari had been lucky to get to her before the government did. She was almost seventeen years old now and was enough trouble to keep Kari and Motorcad busy full-time.
What made matters worse was her inseparable friend Jared had been the second student at the school and they had formed a devilish form of synergy. They hacked together under the same handle of Broccoli Rob, a name that Ruth claimed to hate even though she had come up with it. Jared agreed with her, but neither of them changed it. Kari had long since given up trying to understand them.
The students filed out of the room with energetic teasing. David was just nodding his head and frowning now, accepting that he had no valid response to the hazing from his temporary students.
“Nice students,” David said as soon as they were alone.
“Oh yeah?” Kari said as she slowly closed the gap between them. Even though they talked almost every day, they didn’t see each other too often. Kari had her school to run, and David had been focusing heavily on his studies and research.
And finding ways to hide his travel here is getting trickier every time.
“Yeah, I mean, no one threw anything at me, punched me, or promised to meet me after school for a fight.”
Kari reached out and grabbed his hands.
“That’s excellent feedback. You’re the first sub they’ve ever had.”
She looked up at him, asking him to kiss her.
“Here? In school?”
“Well, it is my school.”
David looked down and she went on her toes to kiss him. There wasn’t any glass in the door, but cheers erupted outside from the students anyway. David was startled, but Kari wasn’t fazed.
With a school full of hackers, you get used to spying inventions being pretty much everywhere.
“Guess I should have expected that,” David said.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school yourself?”
“Well, Motorcad called and said you needed a favor and I had a few sick days I could use. That, and I haven’t seen you in a while . . .”
Kari kissed him again, and this time there were no cheers.
“Well, thank you for coming.”
“I wish I had gone with you to get Rosewood . . .”
“Oh, you saw that?”
“Everyone did! It was all over the news last night. Everything made sense once I saw it.”
“Well, if I had needed help, you would have been the first person I asked, I promise.”
“What about Motorcad?”
“He was not invited,” she said.
“Oh, well I’m glad she got exposed.”
“Me too.”
“So what’s next?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you freed my family, you saved Aubrey, stopped Joseth, and now you’ve taken care of Rosewood.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Isn’t it time you clear your own name?” David said. “It would be nice if we could go out to eat or something one of these days.”
“Oh . . . well . . .” Kari let his hands go and took a step back. It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned something like this. There had always seemed to be more important things to work on than clearing Freelancer’s name.
I guess I’ve been an outlaw so long I don’t really think about it anymore.
“Everyone was good last night?” Kari asked.
“That’s changing the subject.”
“I—” A number of notifications went off in Kari’s mind at once. She instinctively checked them. There was an unrecognized and unexpected aircraft landing just outside of the Academy. She jumped to the camera feed of some drones at the top of the building, and saw the luxury-copter setting down outside of the Academy, sending a wall of dust in all directions.
“Kari?”
“Someone’s here.”
She ran out of the room to see Motorcad come running into the playground on the other side of the room, his face looked just as concerned.
She was already activating all her defenses. She kept them as discreet as possible, but she refused to let anything happen to her students. Hundreds of drones, cheetahs, and other devices were popping online ready for her to use.
“Who is it?” Motorcad said, not worried about the fact that most of the students were still in the room with them.
“I don’t know,” Kari said.
Some students went running for the windows, while others leaned back in their chairs to scope the scene out through technological means. She didn’t slow down as she hit the stairs and headed down. Motorcad was by her side and David was not far behind.
“You get the students out if anything happens,” Kari said.
“Of course,” Motorcad responded.
“I’m staying with you!” David said.
She didn’t have time to respond to him. Reports were flying in from all around the building; so far, nothing besides the high-tech helicopter had been reported near the premises.
“What is it, Professor?” Jared asked. He was the bottom of the stairs waiting for them.
“I don’t know,” Kari said.
“Go upstairs,” David said.
“I’ve got the cheetahs, perimeter EMP drones, you take everything else?” Motorcad said.
“Of course.”
She put her hands on the door, ready to go outside, before David grabbed her.
“You can’t just walk out there!” David said. “We don’t know who that is, it’s too dangerous. What if it’s Henderson?”
“Fine,” Kari said. “We’ll let them act first.”
If Henderson brings his little hurt ego after my school, I swear I will kill him. If anything, he should thank me. All those promotions he received were because of me.
The blades stopped spinning on the printed helicopter and the dust settled. Kari stood inside of her school, heart beating, ready to go to war once again. The door folded down and turned into a pair of stairs.
“Oh my God,” Kari said.
“What? Who is it?” David asked.
Down the stairs stepped Christina Wolfkin and John Luken, the cofounders and owners of Vision, the most powerful tech company on the planet.